You’ve got a rabbit in your hat! You’ve got a few tricks up your sleeve!

My blogging chum and I are becoming increasingly infatuated by the ever-enjoyable Classic Albums Podcast – basic format: two fellers talk about records they lent to each other. A simple format but a winning one, that I wish I’d thought of myself – although I doubt my ability to carry it off in such an affable and urbane fashion. I look forward to each new edition and am gradually working my way through the back catalogue.

One of the ideas Gary and Steven have got me thinking about is the idea of a record having space - quieter moments in which ideas can grow and take hold. I like the notion that the listener needs the occasional pause in proceedings in order to gather his thoughts – a metaphorical parting of clutter as he picks his way across the room and onto the bed.

The Soft Pack

Anyway, I’ve just bought myself the eponymous first album from California’s The Soft Pack, and I’m afraid Gary and Steven would be disappointed. Basically, there’s no space, none at all, not a second to catch your breath at all. Ten bursts of punchy, Garage Punky, sixties fun (there’s even what sounds like a Farfisa organ, God’s choice of keyboard, I feel) and all of it delivered with bursts of youthful energy and exclamation. It’s catchy, exhilarating stuff that you’ll either love or find utterly empty-headed. Or maybe both.

Here!



And there!



Bought the record at the height of Ofsted fever, during the week (and yes, as your asking, it was fine, thank you), but now in the lavish post-Ofsted position of being able to read magazines and browse cool websites at my leisure, I find that pretty much everyone’s (Everyone) all over this already.

Honestly, bees round a honey pot…

Any good Green Man ligger will be well aware that Welsh music (or indeed music in Welsh) has become really rather cool over the last few years, with folk such as Gruff Rhys, Euros Childs, Richard James and Cate le Bon making terrific records that are usually acoustic and distinctively Welsh, all of which are firm favourites of this Blog.

I’ve got something different for you here but definitely of a similar ilk…

Magickal Folk of the Faraway Tree

Moving swiftly on from another … shocking… name, (thankfully there’s no sign of people with skye in their hair or stars in their brows…), the Magickal Folk are some sort of collective of musicians travelling the British Isles making recordings in traditional settings, previously only available on long sold-out CDRs. Deserted Village records have now re-packaged and released a couple of these together with some other songs as “The Soup and the Shilling”.

They are beautiful recordings, sung in English, French and Gaelic, and supplemented lavishly by strings (plucked and bowed), pipes and gorgous backing vocals. I rather like all this clever, linguistic dabbling around – it adds a certain outlandishness to a recording and avoids the tricky business of making an old lyric sound fresh. The result is a bunch of quirky, moss-covered folk songs that are not a long way from some of the early Gorky’s records.

Deserted Village profess to know nothing about these Magickal Folk, claiming that they find the recordings in a hollowed out tree stump (I believe them...), and I’m quite happy for this to remain the case – a little unfamiliarity does us no harm.

We do have a few samples made available, however, by the good people at Deserted Village.

Is Iomaidh Coiscéim Fada

Le Bon Marain

Bewitching stuff…

If it's not for ever, just know I love you now

In a futile (and I suspect, unsuccessful) attempt to convince the outside world that I do indeed have my finger resolutely on the pulse of modern music, I do try to keep up with a few choice labels. To be honest, it would probably be fairer to say that one or two labels do stick with sending me emails, in the hope that every now and again I might be stirred into action.

One of these labels is Loose Music, who have quite an impressive roster these days but maintain an appealingly homemade feel to their operation. Over Christmas I bought the well-regarded The Duke & The Spirit album Nothing Gold Can Say, but I have to say it hasn’t really worked for me, and has drifted to the pile of albums that I really should give another listen (never a good sign).

Danny & the Champions of the World

Not to be deterred, however, I’ve just today bought the new Danny & the Champions of the World record, Streets of our Time, and am enjoying a much lighter country sound which works very nicely.

Danny is apparently the former front man of Grand Drive, and so has some considerable pedigree already. I don’t really know a whole lot about Grand Drive but I probably need to investigate their catalogue further.

I’m not keen on defining a band’s sound by referring to another band (very lazy) but it’s hard not to talk about this record without thinking Springsteen, the Byrds, Neil Young or Dylan. To be fair, however, the influences go back a lot further too, sounding very old-timey, with banjo to the fore (I do love a banjo, me).

Anyway, I was scratching around YouTube looking for a video to play, but the only video up that refers to the new album was this one. It’s not an official video and not really a video at all, just a series of photographs, by a bloke called Tony-Ray Jones. Now, I’m not going to claim I knew who Tony-Ray Jones was, (a trip here soon sorted that out) but the photographs chosen by YouTuber Victoory (who seems to have a rather a nice line in this sort of video) are gorgeous and fit the feel of the title track from the album very nicely.



Loose Music and Danny and the Champions of the World don’t seem to have much up in the way of freebies or even videos to watch but what they do have is this Spotify playlist which is made up of tracks that obviously inspired the record (sure enough, we have Dylan, Neil Young, the Byrds etc).

The younger, cooler member of the family has been telling me to take advantage of Spotify playlists for a while now, and I am reluctantly forced to agree with the young hopper…

I’d go blind to save you…

Despite my best intentions, I am beginning to get a little animated by the prospect of going to Green Man again this year. If you remember, I’d pretty much sworn off buying a ticket ever again after two successive wash outs, until my friend and fellow Kingsholm crony Martin had come up with a late ticket last summer. The rest is history, as they say…

This year, Green Man have already ensnared me with the news that the magnificent Beirut have been persuaded to come over. Now, this was also announced a couple of years ago, mind, only for Zach Condon to pull out at a fairly late stage; so I’m still a little wary at this stage… (Even so, Alastair Roberts is also appearing…)

Cate le Bon

It became something of a standing joke last year that everywhere we turned we seemed to come across Cate le Bon on stage – coming on for a guest spot with Richard James here, performing a few songs for Will Hodgkinson there. I don’t think we even caught here actual set. (I’m sure she performed with Gruff Rhys a previous year as well…)

Anyway, there is now an album from Cate le Bon, Me Oh My, which came out at the end of last year, but which I have only just picked up from Emusic. It’s really rather a charming record that I’m enjoying greatly at the moment. She has a dark, beautiful voice and a slightly melodramatic delivery that gives her songs something of a jarring edge.

And now, it seems that those clever buggers at Green Man have sent her out with her bewitching ways as a sort of advanced guard, heading a mini Green Man tour that will be snagging further unsuspecting and weak-willed punters around the country.



Be on your guard, people!

You must leave here and not come here again, for my husband has made his return

“Gothic” is a funny word, isn’t it?

This being a music Blog (of a fashion), the word will be inextricably mired in a Batcave / Alien Sex Fiend sort of a morass. Visions of lip-stick smeared ninnies singing in grotesquely deep voices spring to mind.

A queasy thought, you'll agree.

If, however, this was one of the myriad of Victorian literature Blogs that clutter up the Internet, a completely different state of affairs would start to unfold. Cruel and sadistic masters, mad women in attics, improbably murky monasteries, providing shelter to defenceless travellers, perhaps. Hardly pleasant, but much more interesting…

So in the unfortunate event of my using the word “gothic” in the course of the next few lines, well, you’ll know where I’m coming from.

The Phantom Carriage

(Actually, quite how I’m supposed to write about a band taking their name from a seminal Swedish horror film, without using the G-word is a little further than my threadbare skills will take me.)

Phantom Carriage is the gloomy vehicle of two blokes calling themselves Mike Seed and Empire State Human, producing dark experimental pieces. I like a bit of eeriness every now and again and this is certainly scary music. Ghostly folk tunes are swamped in tape effects and crackly distortions, producing genuinely creepy music.

Truth be told, I’m still giving their newest album, Skull Exposed To March Rain, (now there’s Gothica for you) its early listens and there are some elements of the record I’m still not really sure about. But right now, right here, I fancy a bit of a chill wind…

The record has been released by Spoilt Victorian Child records, and is completely free to download, here, at SVC or here at the Phantom Carriage’s own site. There’s even a second previous record available, again free, again at both sites. Such startling generosity is only to be applauded I feel.

Here’s a couple of tracks to whet your appetite…

Hawthorn Tree

A Brackish Spirit

Now pick up your lamp and tiptoe downstairs, I’m sure I heard something…

Did you stay down wind? Yes, sir!

(I’ll save you the bleating on about having no time, yada, yada, yada..)

No new music at the moment, just some old stuff I missed at the time…

Open the bottle and let the wine breathe

Ofsted prowls with murderous intent on the doorstep of our beleaguered establishment, causing adults who probably should know better to careen hysterically about the place.

It’s all a bit hairy really – I hope they come soon…

Alasdair Roberts

Am currently very keen on this album from Scottish folk singer, Alasdair Roberts. Clearly a kindred spirit with Will Oldham, he manages to fill out some classic (or classic-sounding) old songs with a little light and shade – just enough to make it a little more edgy.

Just looking around the Internet, I came across this superbly pretentious article and interview which made me laugh aloud. Didn’t understand a word of it!

No downloads around at the moment, but a trip to YouTube yields a few good shows and a rather fine collection of Andy Goldsworthy videos set to the tune of a Roberts’ song.

I’ve linked to this show, however, mainly because, having spent a day on school work, I slipped my wearisome bonds and got along to it in person.

A very pleasant evening that I’m glad to return to.

He might stay, but he will leave in the morning

Rather too many lists and bootlegs of recent. Let’s get back to basics…

Pants Yell!

A truly awful band name (surely, the worst…), but one to listen out for, nonetheless...

Pants Yell! (I’m sure the exclamation mark is vital) hail from Boston and are a three-piece writing genuine pop songs, with lovely brittle guitar lines that skitter around energetically.

I’ve just downloaded what is their fourth album out on Slumberland, Received Pronunciation, and am still giving it its first listen, so I can’t really speak with any authority. What I can say about it is that there’s a real hum about the record that for me could go either way – a huge grower or a hasty dismissal. Obviously I’m hoping for the former, but right now I’m not too fussed which way it’s going to go. I’m living in the moment (and thoroughly enjoying it).

I rather like what Slumberland have written about them. Have a listen…



Slumberland are one of those labels that have a very cool roster of bands (Cause Co-Motion!, Crystal Stilts, Pains of Being Pure at Heart) and we may well be hearing more from them on these pages. In the meantime, the good folk over there are giving away a track from the record “Cold Hands” which you can snag here, but there are another couple of Pants Yell! tracks available on the Asaurus site too, here.

I will also be giving a listen to the third album, Alison Statton, intriguingly named after the singer from bedroom luminaries of my youth, the Young Marble Giants. Endearingly, Popfrenzy, (another of their old labels) have a short clip of Ms Statton herself giving a luke-warm endorsement of the band and apparently asking for them to send her a copy of the record.

Love it…

There are one or two very patient punters out there!

Mr Hooligan has pointed out (with commendable restraint) that the Chinese White link I posted a couple of days is still not working.

For once this is not down to my oft-referred to cack-handedness - I've actually tagged this correctly this time - but all the fileden links seem to have crashed. I have no idea why.

So anyway, here's a .RAR file fo all four songs, which people can snag until I get my (ahem) shit together...

http://www.mediafire.com/file/jwitgnmlw22/Robin Hitchcock Green Man '09.rar

Even kissed you once or twice...

Very sad news...

Every step I take, I think my feet are getting older

Some feller calling himself Devotional Hooligan has left a comment on an old post of mine about Green Man. Apparently the Robin Hitchcock recordings I made have gone down, and Mr Hooligan has asked for a re-up (I’ve got to stop watching quite so much of the Wire).

Couldn’t be happier to oblige, mate, and what’s more I found another recording, taken at the same event, of Mr Hitchcock singing Robin Williamson’s Chinese White.

Enjoy.

I Can Hear the Grass Grow

Bike

River Man

Chinese White

The words “breath” and “bated” spring to mind as I continue to post my best of lists. As I said the other day, my record buying habits are such that whether an album is new or not rarely enters into my thinking. In fact I’m very often unaware of a release date until I get round to preparing these sort of lists. Some of the records I’ve been most excited about in 2009 are already a few years old. I’m a little slow.

So this first list runs down some of the nearly new records I’ve really enjoyed this year:

Seven Nearly New Classics of 2009

Coles Corner – Richard Hawley
Love, Ire & Song – Frank Turner
For Emma, Forever Ago – Bon Iver
This Nation’s Saving Grace – The Fall
Snow Tyres – Unbunny
Lost Wisdom - Mount Eerie , Julie Doiron , Fred Squire
The Wailing Souls at Channel One – Wailing Souls

Some of these I’m embarrassed to have only just cottoned onto, some I feel that I’m arriving at fashionably late after all the fuss has died down. They’re all great records that have enriched my life this year.

Seven Records You Should Probably Buy
(Even though I haven’t…)

The Hazards of Love – The Decemberists

(actually, I have just bought this, not much liking it so far…)

Real Estate – Real Estate (ditto)

Merriweather Post Pavilion – Animal Collective

(I just know this is going to be too difficult for me, and it’ll end up being flung across the room)

Tarot Sport – Fuck Buttons

Psychic Spasms – Neon Indian

Fever Ray – Fever Ray (highly recommended by Mr Cole)

Bitte Orca – The Dirty Projectors (even more highly recommended by the aforementioned Blogger)

And finally...

The Seven Best Records of 2009

But, anyway, what can you do? You can’t get them all can you?

Actually, once I got round to checking out which records were new and which weren't, I was pleasantly surprised to see how much quality music has been released this year. Honourable mentions go to the Volcano Choir, the Antlers, Califone, Vic Chesnutt, You Can Be a Wesley, Euros Childs, the Leisure Society, the Phantom Band, Art Brut, the Lemonheads and Sin Fang Bous, who all produced good records that I’ve enjoyed listening to, but sorry fellers, no cigar…

So here we go, no particular order, I love them all

Veckatimest – Grizzly Bear
Two lovely performances - at Green Man and in Bristol – certainly enhanced this record for me, but even without that, how can you fail to be entranced by those harmonies and complex arrangements?
Dory

The Liberty of Norton Folgate – Madness
I’ve always been keen on Madness and their ability to write a decent pop song, and it’s particularly gratifying to see older gentlemen writing mature songs.
Idiot Child

Album– Girls
“Weedy”, “adenoidal” and “morbid” are all phrases that flash through the mind when you hear this. Their performance at the Cooler confirmed everything, (rather reassuringly so in fact) and added “Hunky Dory” to the list…
Lust for Life

The xx – The xx
The xx are another band who crept under my creaking radar system this year and another band who produced an eponymous classic for me. Right now I can’t get it off the iPhone…
Heart Skipped a Beat

The Crying Light – Antony and the Johnsons
Another record that benefited dramatically from my seeing it performed. It’s that voice again, obviously, but also his ability to write aching, moving songs that makes him continue to stand out.
Her Eyes Are Underneath the Ground

Hometowns – the Rural Alberta Advantage
Great songs and a punchy restless approach made this record a cut above all the other Americana-style releases of the year. Basically, a jumpy, beaty record pushed on by the busiest drummer of the year.
Don’t Haunt This Place

Survival – Forest Fires
Another American record, sounding a lot like the Let It Bleed era Stones and embellished by yukes and other old tyme instruments. Some ugly awkward lyrics as well. Fascinating stuff.
Echoes Coming

In the Court of the Wrestling Let’s – Let’s Wrestle
And speaking of ugly awkward stuff, my last record makes a virtue of a Seeds-ish lack of virtuosity. An eager, wholehearted record that owes something to Art Brut and which actually pushes Eddie Argos off my list. It’s a funny old world, eh?
I Won’t Lie to You

Eight you say? Ah c’mon, who’s counting?

Happy New Year.

Like I said, I’m getting a bit of a taste for this list-writing mullarkey. So this next one is concerned with what was a characteristic of the year for me – live music. Basically, it’s been a stonking year for live music in the West Country, the best I can remember for a good while.

Six Cracking Gigs of 2009

(in chronological order)

David Byrne, Colston Hall, March
A wonderful, winning return from a man who had passed from my consciousness many years ago. Memorable for the choreography as much as the music

Anthony & the Johnsons, Colston Hall, May
Reminded me why I was so impressed by their previous album and made me go and listen to the new album a bit more closely. A remarkable performance.

Bon Iver, Green Man, August
Not having really listened to the album properly, wasn’t sure how much I was going to enjoy his set. I needn’t have worried, an atmospheric and moving performance, all pulled off with genuine humility. With hindsight, my highlight of a great festival. I actually have a recording of the set, and I can’t understand why I never posted it. I’ll remedy this ASAP.

Frank Turner, the Anson Rooms, October
One of those events that grew and grew in my mind as the days followed on from the gig. From being a complete Turner novice at the start of the month, I felt like a veteran by the end of it. Probably the warmest gig I have ever been to but it didn’t stop Frank putting a helluva a session.

The Fall, Jesters, November
A belated rite of passage for me really, and by all accounts up there with some of their better performances. “A glorious racket”.

Lou Rhodes, Thekla, November
What started out as a bit of an away day in the big (well, medium) smoke, turned into a breath-taking gathering in the company of the ex Lamb singer. A very special feel to the evening altogether.

Primal Scream, The Guildhall, December
Overcoming the Guildhall’s dodgy electrics and any tendency towards a spreading waistline, as skinny and as white as ever, Bobby Gillespie remains textbook rock’n’roll. Another rattling evening.

And one other…

Roky Erickson, Green Man, August
Alright, he wasn’t very good - pretty turgid blues rock, if truth be told. But… there he was a mythological figure from another time (another planet really) on stage before us. And he did You’re Gonna Miss Me – if only I’d brought my electric jug with me...

A Proposition...

Everyone does lists at this time of the year don’t they? Best album of the year / decade etc. I don’t really like making lists like that partly because it takes a certain amount of prior planning and organization and partly because, as you’ll have noticed, I dot around, not really noticing what’s new and what’s not. After all, if you’ve not heard it before, it’s new right?

But anyway, not to be churlish, let’s get into the spirit of things…

Five Events that Made my Year

My iPhone – getting myself an iPhone in October proved to be every bit as distracting and fascinating as I’d hoped it would be. I love the touch screen and being able to push icons around on the screen, I love the combination of wireless connectivity and playing music, and I love the Apps. I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface so far, but I am loving it.

Podcasts – one of the upshots of getting the iPhone was that I have discovered the world of Podcasting. Somehow, I’ve never quite got into listening to podcasts previously, mainly because I’ve now gone back to using iTunes, which makes it very easy to keep up with a particular podcast. Current favourites are The Word podcast, The Classic Albums Podcast, Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone, The Football Ramble and Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Reviews.

My First Fall Gig – They’ve always been there, but I’d never seen them before, a little like the Queen (in so many ways…)

Green Man – What a difference a bit of sunshine makes. Previous years had been characterised by expansive rain falls and too long spent huddled in tents feeling wretched, but this year the sun came out and it was a wonderful experience. Highlights were listening to Jah Wobble and Joe Boyd reminiscing , being berated by David Thomas, meeting a few new friends, the new Chah Wallai tent, great sets by Bon Iver and Grizzly Bear and seeing Roky Erickson in the flesh.

Rediscovering the Fall – You’re probably all bored of my going about this, suffice to say that 2009 has been the year Mark E Smith came back into focus for me (albeit a somewhat fuzzy sort of a focus…)

The Wire – actually strike that, 2009 has been chiefly characterised by the obsessive and increasingly impatient wait for the next disk of The Wire to come through my letter box from LoveFilm. It’s been a fantastic journey, one that I would heartily recommend to anyone – easily the best thing I have ever seen on TV.

And now that it’s all over, Michael and I wander, bereft, from room to room unable to communicate our sense of loss to others. Broken tragic figures...

(Fortunately, Santa was tipped off and a gleaming Box Set sits on my desk top, a slightly golden hue emanating from its shrink-wrapped facade…)

Here, watch this, the opening scene from the first series…




I’m having fun here actually – now I’m in the mood I can see myself doing a few more of these lists in the next few days…

Gotta keep on, keepin’ strong

It’s not a competition, of course it isn’t, (although I’ll admit to being secretly pleased that I do on occasion manage to beat my esteemed blogger-colleague and fellow shedhead to the punch…)

Anyway, probably just as well…

Primal Scream

Coming on for two weeks ago, my beloved Guildhall staged a bit of a coup, bagging indie-veterans and still by most standards fairly cool guitar slingers, Primal Scream on one of their warm-up gigs, preparing for an ATP affair (also, by now, in the past tense…). Haven’t been to the old place for a good while now, not having a taste for the procession of money-spinning (but god-awful) tribute bands that the bookers seem to be falling over themselves to engage. But you’ve got to say every now again, they do manage to pull something out of the bag…

No support band, which I was a bit put out about at the time, but it did allow for a good hour and half set from the Primals (the Screamers?). It was a good set too, full of noisy stompers and classic rockers – ticking all the boxes that Primal Scream do well. Gillespie is as white and as skinny as any rock’n’roller would aspire to be, Mani and the rest of the band as tight (and at the same time loose) as you want.

They weren’t helped by the fact that not once but twice the power went mid song, the second time during a rousing Movin’ On Up. Surely entitled to have a full-on hissy fit, to their eternal credit they ploughed on stoically, with Gillespie leading the audience singing until power was restored. Nice moment, really, captured here:


(Credit to ensutton, cheers!)

Another good evening, bringing my Autumn of music to a decent finale. I managed to record the gig, and offer it here minus one of the songs that fell foul to the power gremlins…

Can’t Go Back
Miss Lucifer
Country Girl
Jailbird
Burning Wheel
Necro Hex Blues
Kill All Hippies
Deep Hit of the Sun
Exterminator
Suicide Bomb
Swastika Eyes
Movin’ On Up
Rocks Off
Damaged
Loaded
Accelerator

And the whole gig in two .rar files...

Part One

Part Two

A wise man said to me, don’t underrate simplicity

It's pouring down. I mean … throwing it down, biblical proportions.

We're on the coach back from Bristol. I'm thinking of what I have to do tonight and what I have to get done for tomorrow...

The woman sat in the seat next to me is large and seems to want half my seat. She is reading a copy of A Bit on the Side and smells of beans.

Ah, Saturday night…

Lou Rhodes

Newsflash: Thekla is still as cool as it was last week. And although I've seen a noisy gig there, I'm now convinced that it is even better suited to quieter acoustic evenings. Again the sound was excellent and having gone up to the balcony this time (in reality only a vantage point of about ten feet) the set up and general vibe (there's a good muso word for you) was even better.

Didn't know a whole lot about Lou Rhodes before last night (ex singer with Lamb, apparently, not that I’m much clearer after finding that out, either) but we'd carved out a weekend away and were keen to see some music. Got hold of her first record and, consummate professional that I am, did my homework - turns out Beloved One is an album I can easily endorse with a clear conscience.

She's a frail looking thing but has a clear and striking voice well suited to an evening of delicate songs accompanied carefully by a classic Nick Drake-style format of cello and double bass. Occasionally the pace of her songs got a bit same-y, but the short attention span of this punter was well catered for by the way the arrangements changed from song to song, with the cellist moving to glockenspiel and the double bass player switching to an acoustic bass.

At one point, she introduced one of her songs by saying that if you were one of those people who were too cool to arrive in time for the support act, you’d have missed a real treat. Well (astonishingly) we were one those too cool people and did miss the support, who turned out to have been John Smith.

I’ve seen and written about John before (here) – he was the best part of our ill-fated Davy Graham evening a couple of years ago – and so I was disappointed to have missed him, but fortunately he was called on to play with Lou Rhodes for one of her songs. He’s an astonishing player.

The evening was over rather too soon, but I did manage to make these recordings of the set. (Don’t know the actual name of the fifth track, I’m afraid…)

Janey

There for the Taking

Tremble

Each Moment New

Circles

As well as this, there is currently a free download (available here) which I would recommend you getting hold of too.

A beautiful and engaging singer.

I'm a fifty year old man, what you gonna do about it?

So on Monday I proudly made my Fall debut, going along to the Metropolis in Bristol in the company of old lags, Steve and Martin whose entire adult lives seem to have been punctuated (perhaps even shaped) by Fall gigs. A fair old history indeed, one I’ll admit to being a little envious of, but (I got the feeling) one that was matched over and over again by the dedicated souls that packed a fairly small venue.

The Fall

Followers of this Blog will have found out that I’m a bit of a late-comer to the Fall; I’ve always been aware of their awkward spidery charm, and owned a couple of their records, but never quite “got” them. Until recently, that is with the rediscovery of This Nation’s Saving Grace, Grotesque and Bend Sinister, all records I’ve enjoyed this year.

So where do you go, faced with this history and your own status as a part-timer? The pub’s always a good place, I reckon, so having found that they weren’t due on stage until fairly late, we decamped across the road for a couple of drinks.

We did come back over for the support bands, but, as with a few gigs I’ve been to recently, they weren’t really worth watching. Time clicked on smartly, however, and it wasn’t long before the band came on and a slightly fragile looking Mark E Smith stumbled on stage. Someone at some point described the Fall’s sound as a glorious racket to me, and this was just how it was. A really tight band ploughed through a furious hour and a half of punchy noise, over which Smith ranted, screeched and occasionally crooned. All of the features of a Fall gig that I’d been assured would be present were indeed there – drunkenness, leering, amp twiddling, the mic being passed around the audience during “Blindness” and an amount of falling over.

I’d love to pretend I recognised all these songs and indentified them all immediately but I doubt I’d be fooling anyone. There’s a huge website called the Fall Online which is a good starter for anything Fall-related and perhaps not surprisingly a very active forum there, with people posting about lots of the gigs, including a whole thread on the Bristol gig here.

A jolly good time was had by all, and for once I managed to record the whole gig without talking over the recording or switching it off half way through. I imagine there will be people interested in this, so here’s the set in its boisterous entirety:

Introduction
Strangetown
Wolf Kidult Man
Chino Splashback
Slippy Floor
I’ve Been Duped
Cowboy George / Scenario
50 Year Old Man
Blindness
Psykick Dancehall
Mr Pharmacist
I’m Not From Bury

And two .rar files of the whole evening:

Part One

Part Two

Something’s happening in the attic, there’s no way I’m going up there

It’s been a grand old week, taking in a meal out with friends, a gig in Cheltenham and culminating in a famous win at Castle Grim for the beleaguered Cherry & Whites. But you’ve not ventured onto these pages to hear about the rugby have you, so we’ll move on to the Jetpacks…

We Were Promised Jetpacks

Went over to the Frog & Fiddle with Adam on Wednesday for evening of music and warm ale, culminating in a performance by Glasgow’s humourously-named We Were Promised Jetpacks. This is the second time I’ve been to the Frog & Fiddle in recent months and as a venue I’m quite liking it. You have to go through the main pub, which is a frankly unpromising Sports Bar, and come out into a sort of barn area with a small stage. The sound’s surprisingly good and if you don’t mind nipping into the main bar you can get the aforementioned warm ale.

This evening, there were three other acts on before the Jetpacks ranging from the ballsy (Century Man) to the ridiculously over-confident (didn’t catch the name - probably best all round). The second (rather dull and also anonymous) band actually brought a lot of support with them all of which seemed to wander off after their set, which meant that by the time the Jetpacks came on the numbers were down somewhat, and attention was wandering amongst those who did stay.

I made some recordings of the Jetpacks’ set which are decent enough but reflect the rather small audience. What’s more, whenever I wear my super sensitive stealth mic, it’s almost a given that I’ll find myself standing next to some boorish idiot who just wants to continue a shouted conversation with his mates. (Honestly, hanging’s too good…)

Tellingly the recordings get a little better as the set went on mainly because the Jetpacks were good enough to bring people back on track. Led by a frighteningly intense singer (borderline autistic according to Adam - not me, you understand) who belted away at a rhythm guitar to the extent that he’d broken a string within the first two songs. (Not to worry, though, they had another one – rhythm guitarist that is…) He hooted and yelled throughout the set, often not bothering with the mic at all and was ably assisted by a boisterous but firmly-in-their-place set of Jetpacks.

The album is available on Emusic (here) but I’ll give you a couple of recordings from the night – some of the others were ruined by said loutish behaviour, I’m afraid.

It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning

Roll Up Your Sleeves

There’s also this by Century Man, a recording of their single, who were also good on the night and is worth a listen

Marauders – Century Man

And the questions come with armies

Sheesh! A week, you say?

Grizzly Bear

Well, last weekend saw the latest of my line of gig tickets disappear from the notice board and into the pocket of my jeans, as I set off for a return trip to Bristol University’s Anson Rooms to see Brooklyn’s much-vaunted Grizzly Bear.

First on was a lady going by the name of St Vincent, who Martin tells me is one of Sufjan Stevens’ backing singers. She was earnest and made a fair old racket with a single electric guitar and loop pedal, but I have to say I found myself losing interest fairly quickly. The recordings I made are therefore marred by the sound of me chatting boorishly with friends through the set. (I can almost hear me tut-tutting myself…)

A trawl through Youtube yields this, however…



Grizzly Bear came onto a stage they had apparently decorated with jam jars with candles in them. It was rather charming really, and led onto a similarly pleasant and laid back set. They ran through most of the Veckimatest record, although I rather missed Dory my favourite track. The harmonies were beautiful and the arrangements as complex and ambitious as when I saw them in the summer. Unfortunately, although the heating at the Anson Rooms was not quite as ferociously ridiculous as last week, the sound was actually worse; very, very woolly. The whole set sounded like you were actually hearing it from next door (maybe if I’d stayed outside…). It very hard to hear any vocals clearly and pretty much spoilt the evening for me.

I’d like to say that this affected the quality of my recordings and that my stringent quality control procedures meant that none of the recordings were fit for your ears; but the sad fact is that my natural aptitude for the cack-handed rather overtook things. I think I forgot to turn my recorder on…

I know…

We can at least console ourselves that in any case the poor sound meant that there wouldn’t have been much to show for it anyway. Damn Anson Rooms! (If it helps, you can picture me shaking my fist, Homer-style, at this point).

So… no recordings. We could play the blame game, but let’s move on, eh?

You know I feel bad about these things, so here’s a couple of decent things I’ve heard recently, both Bradley’s Almanac bands (and both on Emusic, should you wish to follow them up).

I give you Drug Rug and Choo Choo La Rouge, both of whom do a rather passable sixties thing, both of whom write a decent song too, both of whom I have been meaning to write about for a few weeks now, but you might as well read about them here:

Never Tell – Drug Rug

It’s Gonna Happen Fast – Choo Choo La Rouge

We Were Promised Jetpacks on Wednesday…

Get up, get down, get outside!

Well my Autumn of music moves on apace…

Frank Turner

Another evening of jigging and cheering, this time at the Anson Rooms in Bristol, with an impressive and vigorous Frank Turner. Not hugely impressed with the Anson Rooms, to be honest, just a large school hall with poor acoustics and an absolutely crazed heating system which made this probably the sweatiest gig I have ever been to.

Frank was great, though, tearing through a set which lasted a good hour and a half and covered most of the Love, Ire and Song album and a lot of his new one, Poetry of the Deed. I’m a new convert to him, really, having been completely unaware of his records until my friend Adam persuaded me to come to this gig. For most of the evening, it felt like I was in a minority of one, though, as song after song was greeted with cheers and rousing sing-alongs. In fact I don’t think I can remember a gig with as much enthusiastic singing and as many people who knew every song all the way through.

There’s something Turner does with his songs that seems to touch people quite deeply and make them relate to him, regardless of personal circumstance. I like the songs on Love, Ire and Song, chiefly because he seems to be dealing with issues of growing old (dis)gracefully, which as a gentleman of a certain age touches a chord with me. But at the Anson Rooms, there were very few old geezers like me, and most people were under 25, I’d say, and so it was a little weird to hear the whole hall singing along to Photosynthesis with gusto.

He played over twenty of his songs, bantered cheerily with the audience, invited one game lad to play a harmonica solo during Dan’s Song and did a wild encore of another ten minutes before traipsing off exhausted (and presumably satisfied) at eleven o’clock. I made some recordings of the gig, which have come out OK, and am attaching some of my favourite numbers, although to be honest, I could have put a good few more:

The Road

Substitute

Love, Ire & Song

Long Live the Queen

Great gig and a lovely bloke.